{"id":896322,"date":"2026-10-27T12:06:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T12:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/896322\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T12:06:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T12:06:22","slug":"analysis-lets-end-a-myth-about-kids-and-candy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/896322\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Let&#8217;s End a Myth About Kids and Candy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        Parents blaming Halloween meltdowns on mini Snickers might want to shift their gaze elsewhere. In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/family\/2026\/10\/sugar-hyperactivity-behavior-halloween\/689119\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atlantic<\/a>, Olga Khazan lays out decades of research showing that sugar doesn&#8217;t make kids bounce off the walls\u2014even if it&#8217;s become the go-to explanation for couch-jumping chaos. She points to landmark studies from the 1980s and &#8217;90s led by pediatrician Mark Wolraich, who repeatedly found no meaningful difference in children&#8217;s behavior or thinking after high-sugar versus low-sugar diets, or sugary drinks versus sugar-free ones.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        So why does the legend endure? Khazan reports that parties and holidays\u2014when candy flows most freely\u2014are already loud and overstimulating, making sugar an easy scapegoat. Expectations play a role, too: in one study, mothers told their child had just consumed a lot of sugar rated them as more hyper, even when the &#8220;sugar&#8221; was actually a placebo. Experts still warn against chronic sugar overload for long-term health, but say occasional splurges, including Halloween hauls, are fine. For the full case against the &#8220;sugar rush,&#8221; and what&#8217;s really driving kid &#8216; chaos, read the original piece <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/family\/2026\/10\/sugar-hyperactivity-behavior-halloween\/689119\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in the Atlantic<\/a>.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Parents blaming Halloween meltdowns on mini Snickers might want to shift their gaze elsewhere. In the Atlantic,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[31333,151,22523,97,81005,129381,13952,13201],"class_list":["post-896322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-behavior","tag-children","tag-halloween","tag-health","tag-hyperactivity","tag-myth","tag-parents","tag-sugar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}